My husband’s mate Graham is best man at his friend Martin’s wedding. For Martin’s bachelor’s party, Graham wanted to print T-Shirts with a caricature of the groom. He asked me if I know anything about caricature drawing and if I would do it. Spoiler: I know NOTHING about caricatures. It never interested me as an art form. Yet I promised, I’d give it a try anyway.

To get my head around the subject, I watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to approach caricatures. How to exaggerate head features. The tricky thing here is keeping the likeness while at the same time exaggerating specific characteristics, hence enhancing their individuality. I have huge respect for the skills of caricature artists who are able to work out exactly the essence of the personal, visual features. But let me tell you: it sure isn’t my thing. For one, caricatures (even if done by a pro) are not visually appealing to me. And secondly, I sorely lack experience which shows in those drawings. Practice makes the pro, but I have no proclivity to give it more than a couple of hours work… Here, have a look.

Graham gave me 2 pictures of the groom. Here is a caricature of the other one:

And here are some quick initial sketches to capture the head shape:

This is something that I took out of the caricature lessons and that translates to other design work too: When brainstorming/scribbling some solutions, don’t spend too much time on each visual. Just a few minutes. Keep it rough and don’t focus on the details. The aim is to get a range of different approaches and not to get emotionally attached to one of the initial drawings, even if it seems a good solution. This way, you stay flexible and more courageous.